THE WITCHING HOUR - FIRST HARD COVER - FLAT SIGNED. NY: Knopf, First Edition. 6 X 9. Hard Cover. Signed by Author. Fine / Fine. ISBN: 0394587863. It begins in our time with a rescue at sea. Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery -aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches- finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life. He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him.